Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword,
which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side, and
the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the fate of
other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the minority; but
they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective which has been
heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their apologists at
the North. They know that when George Fox and William Edmundson were
laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in 1671 that the
very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which are _now_
circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known that Fox
was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_ war, and
_all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of "endeavoring to excite the
slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut their master's
throats." And these two men who had their feet shod with the preparation
of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled to draw up a formal
declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise a rebellion in
Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these Reformers did not at
this time see the necessity of emancipation under seven years, and their
principal efforts were exerted to persuade the planters of the necessity
of instructing their slaves; but the slaveholder saw then, just what the
slaveholder sees now, that an _enlightened_ population _never_ can be a
_slave_ population, and therefore they passed a law, that negroes should
not even attend the meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the
life of Clarkson was sought by slavetraders; and that even Wilberforce
was denounced on the floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by
the present King of England, the very man who, in 1834, set his seal to
that instrument which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves
in his West India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a
_faithful_ testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from
religious fellowship with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On
her deathbed she sent for the committee who dealt with her--she told
them, the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the
subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and
beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window, she
said with great solemnity, "Friends, the time will come when there will
not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting for
worship, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness."
The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting
circumstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven
meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was there
ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country was
literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, John Woolman began his
labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member for testifying
_against_ slavery, they have for fifty-two years positively forbidden
their members to hold slaves.
Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be
surprised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the North;
they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the more
violent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn the
motives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden things
of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be driven
back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foaming out
their own shame. They have stood "the world's dread laugh," when only
twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in Boston in 1831. They
have faced and refuted the calumnies of their enemies, and proved
themselves to be emphatically _peace men_ by _never resisting_ the
violence of mobs, even when driven by them from the temple of God, and
dragged by an infuriated crowd through the streets of the emporium of
New-England, or subjected by _slaveholders_ to the pain of corporal
punishment. "None of these things move them;" and, by the grace of God,
they are determined to persevere in this work of faith and labor of
love: they mean to pray, and preach, and write, and print, until slavery
is completely overthrown, until Babylon is taken up and cast into the
sea, to "be found no more at all." They mean to petition Congress year
after year, until the seat of our government is cleansed from the sinful
traffic of "slaves and the souls of men." Although that august assembly
may be like the unjust judge who "feared not God neither regarded man,"
yet it must yield just as he did, from the power of importunity. Like
the unjust judge, Congress _must_ redress the wrongs of the widow, lest
by the continual coming up of petitions, it be wearied. This will be
striking the dagger into the very heart of the monster, and once 'tis
done, he must soon expire.
Abolitionists have been accused of abusing their Southern brethren. Did
the prophet Isaiah _abuse_ the Jews when he addressed to them the
cutting reproofs contained in the first chapter of his prophecies, and
ended by telling them, they would be _ashamed_ of the oaks they had
desired, and _confounded_ for the garden they had chosen? Did John the
Baptist _abuse_ the Jews when he called them "_a generation of vipers_,"
and warned them "to bring forth fruits meet for repentance?" Did Peter
abuse the Jews when he told them they were the _murderers_ of the Lord
of Glory? Did Paul abuse the Roman Governor when he reasoned before him
of righteousness, temperance, and judgment, so as to send conviction
home to his guilty heart, and cause him to tremble in view of the crimes
he was living in? Surely not. No man will now accuse the prophets and
apostles of _abuse_, but what have Abolitionists done more than they? No
doubt the Jews thought the prophets and apostles in their day, just as
harsh and uncharitable as slaveholders now, think Abolitionists; if they
did not, why did they beat, and stone, and kill them?
Great fault has been found with the prints which have been employed to
expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this be done so
effectually in any other way? Until the pictures of the slave's
sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no Northerner had any
idea of the cruelty of the system, it never entered their minds that
such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican America; they
never suspected that many of the _gentlemen_ and _ladies_ who came from
the South to spend the summer months in travelling among them, were
petty tyrants at home. And those who had lived at the South, and came to
reside at the North, were too _ashamed of slavery_ even to speak of it;
the language of their hearts was, "tell it _not_ in Gath, publish it
_not_ in the streets of Askelon;" they saw no use in uncovering the
loathsome body to popular sight, and in hopeless despair, wept in secret
places over the sins of oppression. To such hidden mourners the
formation of Anti-Slavery Societies was as life from the dead, the first
beams of hope which gleamed through the dark clouds of despondency and
grief. Prints were made use of to effect the abolition of the
Inquisition in Spain, and Clarkson employed them when he was laboring to
break up the Slave trade, and English Abolitionists used them just as we
are now doing. They are powerful appeals and have invariably done the
work they were designed to do, and we cannot consent to abandon the use
of these until the _realities_ no longer exist.
With regard to those white men, who, it was said, did try to raise an
insurrection in Mississippi a year ago, and who were stated to be
Abolitionists, none of them were proved to be members of Anti-Slavery
Societies, and it must remain a matter of great doubt whether, even they
were guilty of the crimes alledged against them, because when any
community is thrown into such a panic as to inflict Lynch law upon
accused persons, they cannot be supposed to be capable of judging with
calmness and impartiality. _We know_ that the papers of which the
Charleston mail was robbed, were _not_ insurrectionary, and that they
were _not_ sent to the colored people as was reported. _We know_ that
Amos Dresser was _no insurrectionist_ though he was accused of being so,
and on this false accusation was publicly whipped in Nashville in the
midst of a crowd of infuriated _slaveholders_. Was that young man
disgraced by this infliction of corporal punishment? No more than was
the great apostle of the Gentiles who five times received forty stripes,
save one. Like him, he might have said, "henceforth I bear in my body
the marks of the Lord Jesus," for it was for the _truth's sake, he
suffered_, as much as did the Apostle Paul. Are Nelson, and Garrett, and
Williams, and other Abolitionists who have recently been banished from
Missouri, insurrectionists? _We know_ they are _not_, whatever
slaveholders may choose to call them. The spirit which now asperses the
character of the Abolitionists, is the _very same_ which dressed up the
Christians of Spain in the skins of wild beasts and pictures of devils
when they were led to execution as heretics. Before we condemn
individuals, it is necessary, even in a wicked community, to accuse them
of some crime; hence, when Jezebel wished to compass the death of
Naboth, men of Belial were suborned to bear _false_ witness against him,
and so it was with Stephen, and so it ever has been, and ever will be,
as long as there is any virtue to suffer on the rack, or the gallows.
_False_ witnesses must appear against Abolitionists before they can be
condemned.
I will now say a few words on George Thompson's mission to this country.
This Philanthropist was accused of being a foreign emissary. Were La
Fayette, and Steuben, and De Kalb, foreign emissaries when they came
over to America to fight against the tories, who preferred submitting to
what was termed, "the yoke of servitude," rather than bursting the
fetters which bound them to the mother country? _They_ came with _carnal
weapons_ to engage in _bloody_ conflict against American citizens, and
yet, where do their names stand on the page of History. Among the
honorable, or the low? Thompson came here to war against the giant sin
of slavery, _not_ with the sword and the pistol, but with the smooth
stones of oratory taken from the pure waters of the river of Truth. His
splendid talents and commanding eloquence rendered him a powerful
coadjutor in the Anti-Slavery cause, and in order to neutralize the
effects of these upon his auditors, and rob the poor slave of the
benefits of his labors, his character was defamed, his life was sought,
and he at last driven from our Republic, as a fugitive. But was
_Thompson_ disgraced by all this mean and contemptible and wicked
chicanery and malice? No more than was Paul, when in consequence of a
vision he had seen at Troas, he went over to Macedonia to help the
Christians there, and was beaten and imprisoned, because he cast out a
spirit of divination from a young damsel which had brought much gain to
her masters. Paul was as much a _foreign emissary_ in the Roman colony
of Philippi, as George Thompson was in America, and it was because he
was a _Jew_, and taught customs it was not lawful for them to receive or
observe, being Romans, that the Apostle was thus treated.
It was said, Thompson was a felon, who had fled to this country to
escape transportation to New Holland. Look at him now pouring the
thundering strains of his eloquence, upon crowded audiences in Great
Britain, and see in this a triumphant vindication of his character. And
have the slaveholder, and his obsequious apologist, gained any thing by
all their violence and falsehood? No! for the stone which struck Goliath
of Gath, had already been thrown from the sling. The giant of slavery
who had so proudly defied the armies of the living God, had received his
death-blow before he left our shores. But what is George Thompson doing
there? Is he not now laboring there, as effectually to abolish American
slavery as though he trod our own soil, and lectured to New York or
Boston assemblies? What is he doing there, but constructing a stupendous
dam, which will turn the overwhelming tide of public opinion over the
wheels of that machinery which Abolitionists are working here. He is now
lecturing to _Britons_ on _American Slavery_, to the _subjects_ of a
_King_, on the abject condition of the _slaves of a Republic_. He is
telling them of that mighty confederacy of petty tyrants which extends
ever thirteen States of our Union. He is telling them of the munificent
rewards offered by slaveholders, for the heads of the most distinguished
advocates for freedom in this country. He is moving the British Churches
to send out to the churches of America the most solemn appeals,
reproving, rebuking, and exhorting them with all long suffering and
patience to abandon the sin of slavery immediately. Where then I ask,
will the name of George Thompson stand on the page of History? Among the
honorable, or the base?
What can I say more, my friends, to induce _you_ to set your hands, and
heads, and hearts, to this great work of justice and mercy. Perhaps you
have feared the consequences of immediate Emancipation, and been
frightened by all those dreadful prophecies of rebellion, bloodshed and
murder, which have been uttered. "Let no man deceive you;" they are the
predictions of that same "lying spirit" which spoke through the four
thousand prophets of old, to Ahab king of Israel, urging him on to
destruction. _Slavery_ may produce these horrible scenes if it is
continued five years longer, but Emancipation _never will_.
I can prove the _safety_ of immediate Emancipation by history. In St.
Domingo in 1793 six hundred thousand slaves were set free in a white
population of forty-two thousand. That Island "marched as by enchantment
towards its ancient splendor", cultivation prospered, every day produced
perceptible proofs of its progress, and the negroes all continued
quietly to work on the different plantations, until in 1802, France
determined to reduce these liberated slaves again to bondage. It was at
_this time_ that all those dreadful scenes of cruelty occurred, which we
so often _unjustly_ hear spoken of, as the effects of Abolition. They
were occasioned _not_ by Emancipation, but by the base attempt to fasten
the chains of slavery on the limbs of liberated slaves.
In Guadaloupe eighty-five thousand slaves were freed in a white
population of thirteen thousand. The same prosperous effects followed
manumission here, that had attended it in Hayti, every thing was quiet
until Buonaparte sent out a fleet to reduce these negroes again to
slavery, and in 1802 this institution was re-established in that Island.
In 1834, when Great Britain determined to liberate the slaves in her
West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship system; the
planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined the other planters
in their representations of the bloody consequences of Emancipation, in
order if possible to hold back the hand which was offering the boon of
freedom to the poor negro; as soon as they found such falsehoods were
utterly disregarded, and Abolition must take place, came forward
voluntarily, and asked for the compensation which was due to them,
saying, _they preferred immediate emancipation_, and were not afraid of
any insurrection. And how is it with these islands now? They are
decidedly more prosperous than any of those in which the apprenticeship
system was adopted, and England is now trying to abolish that system, so
fully convinced is she that immediate Emancipation is the _safest_ and
the best plan.
And why not try it in the Southern States, if it _never_ has occasioned
rebellion; if _not a drop of blood_ has ever been shed in consequence of
it, though it has been so often tried, why should we suppose it would
produce such disastrous consequences now? "Be not deceived then, God is
not mocked," by such false excuses for not doing justly and loving
mercy. There is nothing to fear from immediate Emancipation, but _every
thing_ from the continuance of slavery.
Sisters in Christ, I have done. As a Southerner, I have felt it was my
duty to address you. I have endeavoured to set before you the exceeding
sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of those noble
women who have been raised up in the church to effect great revolutions,
and to suffer for the truth's sake. I have appealed to your sympathies
as women, to your sense of duty as _Christian women_>. I have attempted
to vindicate the Abolitionists, to prove the entire safety of immediate
Emancipation, and to plead the cause of the poor and oppressed. I have
done--I have sowed the seeds of truth, but I well know, that even if an
Apollos were to follow in my steps to water them, "_God only_ can give
the increase." To Him then who is able to prosper the work of his
servant's hand, I commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he
"hath _chosen the weak things of the world_, to confound the things
which are mighty," so He may cause His blessing, to descend and carry
conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages.
Farewell.--Count me not your "enemy because I have told you the truth,"
but believe me in unfeigned affection,
Your sympathizing Friend,
ANGELINA E. GRIMKÉ.
Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, corner of Spruce and
Nassau Streets.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
* * * * *
VOL. I. SEPTEMBER, 1836. No. 2.
* * * * *
APPEAL
TO THE
CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH,
BY A.E. GRIMKÉ REVISED AND CORRECTED.
"Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within
thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house more than all
the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time,
then shalt there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place: but thou and thy father's house shall be
destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom
for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai
this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, which is not
according to law, and _if I perish, I perish_."
Esther IV. 13-16.
RESPECTED FRIENDS,
It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and
eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. Some of
you have loved me as a relative, and some have felt bound to me in
Christian sympathy, and Gospel fellowship; and even when compelled by a
strong sense of duty, to break those outward bonds of union which bound
us together as members of the same community, and members of the same
religious denomination, you were generous enough to give me credit, for
sincerity as a Christian, though you believed I had been most strangely
deceived. I thanked you then for your kindness, and I ask you _now_, for
the sake of former confidence, and former friendship, to read the
following pages in the spirit of calm investigation and fervent prayer.
It is because you have known me, that I write thus unto you.
But there are other Christian women scattered over the Southern States,
of whom a very large number have never seen me, and never heard my name,
and feel _no_ personal interest whatever in _me_. But I feel an interest
in _you_, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily draw the
principle of spiritual vitality--Yes! Sisters in Christ I feel an
interest in _you_, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your
behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out
of thy Law"--It is then, because I _do feel_ and _do pray_ for you, that
I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, perhaps you
would rather not hear any thing; but, "would to God ye could bear with
me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy." Be not afraid then to read my appeal; it is
_not_ written in the heat of passion or prejudice, but in that solemn
calmness which is the result of conviction and duty. It is true, I am
going to tell you unwelcome truths, but I mean to speak these _truths in
love_, and remember Solomon says, "faithful are the _wounds_ of a
friend." I do not believe the time has yet come when _Christian women_
"will not endure sound doctrine," even on the subject of Slavery, if it
is spoken to them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address _you_.
* * * * *
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_PLEASE READ AND CIRCULATE._
* * * * *
To all of you then, known or unknown, relatives or strangers, (for you
are all _one_ in Christ,) I would speak. I have felt for you at this
time, when unwelcome light is pouring in upon the world on the subject
of slavery; light which even Christians would exclude, if they could,
from our country, or at any rate from the southern portion of it,
saying, as its rays strike the rock bound coasts of New England and
scatter their warmth and radiance over her hills and valleys, and from
thence travel onward over the Palisades of the Hudson, and down the soft
flowing waters of the Delaware and gild the waves of the Potomac,
"hitherto shalt thou come and no further;" I know that even professors
of His name who has been emphatically called the "Light of the world"
would, if they could, build a wall of adamant around the Southern States
whose top might reach unto heaven, in order to shut out the light which
is bounding from mountain to mountain and from the hills to the plains
and valleys beneath, through the vast extent of our Northern States. But
believe me, when I tell you, their attempts will be as utterly fruitless
as were the efforts of the builders of Babel; and why? Because moral,
like natural light, is so extremely subtle in its nature as to overleap
all human barriers, and laugh at the puny efforts of man to control it.
All the excuses and palliations of this system must inevitably be swept
away, just as other "refuges of lies" have been, by the irresistible
torrent of a rectified public opinion. "The _supporters_ of the slave
system," says Jonathan Dymond in his admirable work on the Principles of
Morality, "will _hereafter_ be regarded with the _same_ public feeling,
as he who was an advocate for the slave trade _now_ is." It will be, and
that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowledged by all the
virtuous and the candid, that in _principle_ it is as sinful to hold a
human being in bondage who has been born in Carolina, as one who has
been born in Africa. All that sophistry of argument which has been
employed to prove, that although it is sinful to send to Africa to
procure men and women as slaves, who have never been in slavery, that
still, it is not sinful to keep those in bondage who have come down by
inheritance, will be utterly overthrown. We must come back to the good
old doctrine of our forefathers who declared to the world, "this self
evident truth that _all_ men are created equal, and that they have
certain _inalienable_ rights among which are life, _liberty_, and the
pursuit of happiness." It is even a greater absurdity to suppose a man
can be legally born a slave under _our free Republican_ Government, than
under the petty despotisms of barbarian Africa. If then, we have no
right to enslave an African, surely we can have none to enslave an
American; if it is a self evident truth that _all_ men, every where and
of every color are born equal, and have an _inalienable right to
liberty_, then it is equally true that _no_ man can be born a slave, and
no man can ever _rightfully_ be reduced to _involuntary_ bondage and
held as a slave, however fair may be the claim of his master or mistress
through wills and title-deeds.